wizards of Skatzabratzumon.
Furthermore, Guest Gulkan had resided for four years in the halls of Cap Foz Para Lash, where he had been introduced to many notions which were alien to his father – such as the idea that a machine of sufficient subtlety could insinuate its processes into the brain of an animal then animate that animal as a puppet.
'If you are but an extension of the therapist,' said Guest, in a conversational tone of voice, 'then doubtless your death will mean nothing, for you are but a fingernail.'
'Quokka,' said the quokka, getting that word out in defiance of Guest's choking pressure.
'I was speaking by way of analogy,' said Guest. 'You know the analogies? My good tutor Sken-Pitilkin was very big on the analogies, though I must say I never saw their use till today.'
Ah!
Take note!
It is said that, as we go through life, we slowly accumulate wisdom. In Guest Gulkan's life there had so far been precious little sign of this process – till now! On this day of days, he had saved his own life by arguing by analogy, and had saved the life of his father too. Had Guest not been adroit with his analogies, then both Witchlord and Weaponmaster would surely have already been dangling upside down while a chortling therapist gouged out their eyes.
Let us then open the Book of Morals, and record in that Book the supremacy of the philosophies, for it was the application of philosophy had saved Guest Gulkan's life, saving him from a doom against which the strength of his sword would have availed him not (even presuming him to have had a sword, and of course he had none, having lost his steel to the murkbeast).
Doubtless, had Guest been philosopher sufficient, he could have resolved all his other difficulties with equal ease, sliding past the murkbeast without getting so much as the smallest splattering of mud upon his hide, discovering the cornucopia and then securing his exit from the Stench Caves.
But, since Guest's wisdom had yet to reach its full flowering, he had solve his remaining problems by using a non- philosophical mode of operation. This he did by further squeezing the quokka.
'Quokka,' repeated the quokka.
'A quokka, are you?' said Guest. 'Then I tell you this. You will very shortly be a dead quokka unless you bind yourself to my service. I once hung three men. In the village of Ink, that's where it was. I hung them high in a consequence of the damage they did to me and mine. They brought our lives into peril by selling us rotten boats. Just as I hung those men, so I will hang you, for I think you a menace as great, if not greater.'
'Quokka,' said the quokka.
'Are you pretending to be imbecile?' said Guest. 'Well, if you are, then you will die as an imbecile. Father! A bootlace! I will hang this thing, and now!'
Then Lord Onosh consented to free one of his bootlaces, something not easily done, for the thing had tightened after getting wet, and the Witchlord broke two fingernails getting it free. But with the bootlace free, Guest Gulkan made a hangman's knot – he had learnt that art from Thodric Jarl – and placed the noose around the quokka's neck.
At which the animal broke down entirely, and began to cry.
Have you seen a rat cry? No? Then imagine it. It is the most lugubrious of sights. But it left Guest Gulkan entirely unmoved.
'Since you weep,' said Guest, 'then I presume you to be a creature in your own right, presumably one tutored beyond its natural temperament by injection of nanotechnological manipulators.'
By this phrase 'nanotechnological manipulators', Guest Gulkan meant 'very small insect-like working-things made of steel'. To say this, he did not use the Eparget of the Yarglat, for the Yarglat have little use for nanotechnology. Instead, Guest inserted into his conversation a fragment of alien nomenclature which he had absorbed in the halls of Cap Foz Para Lash in the city of Dalar ken Halvar.
On hearing the words 'nanotechnological manipulators' phrased in that alien nomenclature, the quokka flinched as if burnt.
'Aha!' said Guest. 'It confesses its nature, does it?'
'I confess nothing,' said the quokka sullenly.
'Then I will hang you,' said Guest.
'If you hang me,' said the quokka, 'then you'll die. You can't get out of here alone.'
'Well then,' said Guest, 'if I must die, I'll at least having the satisfaction of having one last meal before I do die.'
With that, the Weaponmaster rose to his full height, and raised the bootlace. The quokka was dragged upwards onto the tips of its toes. It squealed as the noose tightened. Guest eased off the pressure – just a trifle.
'All right, all right!' said the quokka. 'I'll show you, I'll show you! I'll show you the way out! But. But. You have to promise me. You have to promise not to kill me.'
'You have my word,' said Guest. 'I give you my oath upon it.
I swear by my honor. I will not kill you, nor do you any other harm. But – but! This oath is conditional. To be honored with your life, you must find us the cornucopia.'
'The cornucopia?' said the quokka scornfully. 'There's no such thing.'
'Then,' said Guest, again tightening the bootlace, 'you will very shortly find yourself equally non-existent.'
At that, the quokka was at last persuaded, and, with uncommonly little fuss and difficulty, it guided them first to the cornucopia – which was hidden in a the heart of a three- dimensional maze which would have perplexed the intellect of any five dozen mathematicians put together – then led them to a gnarled flight of derelict stone stairs which led upward.
'Your liberty is at the top of these stairs,' said the quokka. 'But as for me – this is as far as I go.'
'Very well,' said Guest. 'Father mine, it is time for you to hang this quokka.'
'Hang me!' said the quokka, in great distress. 'But you swore to preserve me!'
'I swore to do you no harm,' said Guest, demonstrating his rapidly advancing philosophical prowess by a strict application of logic. 'That is not the same as preserving you. I will be true to my oath. I will do you no harm. It is my father who will do you harm.'
'I doubt it,' said the Witchlord.
'What?' said Guest, startled.
'You may amuse yourself by hanging this rat, if you wish,' said Lord Onosh, 'but I think it beneath my dignity.'
'Dignity!' said Guest. 'We're not talking dignity! We're talking of law! This thing has led men to its deaths, I'm sure of it. Are we to let it free to lead more men to destruction?'
Here Guest had a point. It was undeniably true that the quokka had tried to lead both Witchlord and Weaponmaster to their deaths; and, in all probability, if released it would encompass the death of anyone else who found their way into the Stench Caves. So it was necessary to hang it. Hanging is an ugly business, and in an ordered society there would be no need for it, since in an ordered society, there would be no need for it, since an ordered society would have an Inspector of Boats to regulate the sale of boats and an Inspector of Caves to regulate the governance of Stench Caves.
But as Guest Gulkan lived in a singularly disordered age, a great age of darkness in which competent Inspectors and other regulatory bureaucrats were singularly thin on the ground, he must necessarily be put to the trouble of undertaking the singularly brutal business of hanging in order to serve the ends of justice and preserve the lives of the unwary.
So the quokka was duly hung; and, having been hung, it was eaten. Raw. For Witchlord and Weaponmaster did not have a tinderbox between them; and, besides, they were in no mood to waste time on unnecessary cookery.
Having eaten the quokka – not all of it, for they were not hungry enough to trouble themselves with the guts, and they discarded the fur and the bones – Witchlord and Weaponmaster ventured up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, the two Yarglat barbarians found themselves at the bottom of a huge pit. Honest sunlight beamed down on them from the top of the pit – it was by Guest's reckoning late afternoon – but the walls of the pit were quite unclimbable.
Witchlord and Weaponmaster climbed to the small mound of rubble in the middle of the pit, a mound made of
